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Cognitive Principles of Multimedia Learning: The Role of Modality and Contiguity
Abstract
Students viewed a computer animation depicting the process of lightning. In Experiment 1, they concurrently viewed on-screen text presented near the animation or far from the animation, or concurrently listened to a narration. In Experiment 2, they concurrently viewed on-screen text or listened to a narration, viewed on-screen text following or preceding the animation, or listened to a narration following or preceding the animation. Learning was measured by retention, transfer, and matching tests. Experiment 1 revealed a spatial-contiguity effect in which students learned better when visual and verbal materials were physically close. Both experiments revealed a modality effect in which students learned better when verbal input was presented auditorily as speech rather than visually as text. The results support 2 cognitive principles of multimedia learning. Technological advances have made possible the combina-tion and coordination of verbal presentation modes (such as narration and on-screen text) with nonverbal presentation modes (such as graphics, video, animations, and environmen-tal sounds) in just one device (the computer). These ad-vances include multimedia environments, where students can be introduced to causal models of complex systems by the use of computer-generated animations (Park & Hopkins, 1993). However, despite its power to facilitate learning, multimedia has been developed on the basis of its technologi-cal capacity, and rarely is it used according to research-based principles (Kozma, 1991; Mayer, in press; Moore, Burton, & Myers, 1996). Instructional design of multimedia is still mostly based on the intuitive beliefs of designers rather than on empirical evidence (Park & Hannafin, 1994). The purpose of the present study is to contribute to multi-media learning theory by clarifying and testing two cogni-tive principles: the contiguity principle and the modality principle.
... Empirical studies that compared the input modalities in the modality and redundancy principles utilized diverse multimedia lessons. For example, the multimedia lessons taught the formation of lightning (Mayer & Moreno, 1998;Moreno & Mayer, 1999), the mechanisms of an electric motor , biological facts (Harskamp et al., 2007), electricity units (Kutbay, & Akpinar, 2020), C++Computer Programming (Cheah, & Leong, 2019), stem cells (Tarchi et al., 2021), and a mix topics concerning ecology, astronomy, geography, and chemistry (Zheng et al., 2022). Mayer et al. (2014) utilized a multimedia lesson about the formation of a soda fountain and found that captioning did not lead to superior learning outcomes for ESL students. ...
... According to the modality principle (Moreno & Mayer, 1999), the input mode of graphics+audio facilitates learning better than that of graphics+text. The simultaneous input of graphics and text gives rise to competition for cognitive resources in the visual channel, and results in an overload of this channel (Moreno & Mayer, 1999). ...
... According to the modality principle (Moreno & Mayer, 1999), the input mode of graphics+audio facilitates learning better than that of graphics+text. The simultaneous input of graphics and text gives rise to competition for cognitive resources in the visual channel, and results in an overload of this channel (Moreno & Mayer, 1999). ...
The modality and redundancy principles are two fundamental principles used to inform the design of multimedia instruction. They are based on a variety of experimental studies that utilized different types of multimedia lessons to compare input modes of graphics+audio, graphics+text, and graphics+audio+text with each other. However, a lack of control of multimedia lessons in previous studies creates a threat to validity because a single case scenario without following certain principles is not sufficient to represent a construct. Therefore, this study addressed this inherent validity threat and reinvestigated the applicability of the modality and redundancy principles when students learned during a controlled multimedia lesson. In this study the multimedia lesson was developed to follow a series of multimedia learning principles. These principles ensured that the lesson was representative of different types of multimedia lessons. Additionally, they ensured that the multimedia lesson was conducive to learning, since those that were not helpful would not be utilized for instruction in the first place. Eighty-six students in a research university in the US took a prior knowledge survey. They were then randomly assigned to the three input mode conditions and watched the multimedia lesson about the formation of lightning. Subsequent retention and transfer tests revealed that there were no statistically significant differences among the three input mode conditions. Therefore, both the redundancy and modality effects disappeared. This study provided an updated understanding of the applicability of the two important principles for multimedia instruction. Limitations and implications were discussed.
... The developed application follows the Modality Principle (MP) of multimedia learning which supports that the presentation of words through narration in addition to on-screen visuals results in higher retention rates (Moreno & Mayer, 1999) (Enjoyment). An extensive literature supports that the amalgamation of auditory and visual text modalities helps in increasing the capacity of working memory (Penney, 1989). ...
The teaching of Mathematics – in particular, Geometry, through conventional methods has been a challenging task for tutors. Augmented Reality (AR) based applications available in commercial space, have not followed any structured pedagogical approach in the designing process, and also do not ensure that the learning time of students is spent prolifically. In this paper, we explore the use of AR in mathematics for geometry education, to aid visualization of multidimensional objects and long-term retention of concepts by the learners. For designing an appropriate AR application it is necessary to identify some principles which support better memory retention of the students. The application has been specifically designed on the basis of identified principles affecting memory retention. We further explain the development of an AR-based Geometry Learning Assistant (AR-GLA), using a structural approach to pedagogical-design for teaching 3-dimensional geometry to higher school students through improved visualization and enhance their memory retention for related concepts. A sample of 54 K-12 students and 2 teachers with expertise in mathematics were part of the experiment. The students were divided into two different groups; one of the groups was taught with AR-based content whereas the other group was given Interactive Simulation (IS) based learning. The results illustrated that AR-based learning provides better retention of memory as compared to IS-based learning were tested over a period of two months.
... Leach et al., 2004;Richardson, 2011). Meanwhile, a small number of studies have stressed the importance of creating e-lectures (Feifer & Tazbaz, 1997;Dewhurst & Williams, 1998;Evans & Edwards, 1999;Moreno & Mayer, 1999;Holt et al., 2001;Williams et al., 2001;Maki & Maki, 2002;Evans et al., 2004;Stephenson et al., 2008;Griffin et al., 2009;Visioli et al., 2009;Sendra-Portero et al., 2013;Adebari et al., 2016;University Utrecht, 2017). FML is considered a conceptual gap in this thesis. ...
Mobile technologies have changed many ways in which entire societies look at and use information. Rapid developments in the field have radically altered how we communicate, collaborate and interact via these technologies and this has had a deep impact on the educational sector, which is expanding almost daily as technologies become increasingly integrated and available to learners and teachers of all ages. Mobile learning (ML) has been increasingly employed both in student learning and in teacher training and flipped learning (FL) has been recognised as an innovative and effective instructional approach that has recently gained prominence. In this era, learning as well as training environments have become more diverse, from traditional classroom environments to the latest online video conferencing applications. Each environment has its advantages and disadvantages, however, and this research examines the potential benefits of delivering mobile learning in a flipped (learner-centred) format. The integration of mobile learning with flipped learning is known as flipped mobile learning (FML) and is an attempt to overcome the disadvantages of each learning method on its own. By combining the advantages of each in a university teachers’ continuing professional development programme (CPD), this research aims to better understand the perceived and actual effects of the FML approach. The study investigates whether FML improves the electronic lecture (e-lecture) skills of university teachers in a leading university in Saudi Arabia, with a view to increasing the use of e-lectures in higher education (HE) institutions in this country. Additionally, this research explores university teachers’ opinions of the concerns, challenges, and affordances of the FML approach to determine whether FML is viable for teaching large numbers of students. It is proposed that FML could make this possible at low cost, thus addressing teacher shortages as well as allowing women to transcend current gender segregation restrictions in Saudi Arabian education. The underpinning theoretical framework for this thesis was based on the concept of Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge (TPACK), expressed through three groups for FL, ML, and FML. A pragmatic research paradigm and a mixed research approach were employed with a quasi-experimental and multiple interventions approach. Participants were Saudi female university teachers in a range of different academic positions and disciplines. They were each assigned to one of three groups; the first group trained in an FL environment, the second were trained using ML, and the third via FML. This research used multiple methods in order to achieve the aims. Data analysis compared the perceived outcomes of FL, ML, and FML CPD on university teachers’ e-lecture skills through questionnaires before and after the experiment. An evaluation product card was used by the researcher before and after CPD to identify the actual outcomes of FL, ML, and FML CPD on the university teachers’ e-lecture skills. This was followed by semi-structured interviews to record rich data about the university teachers' opinion of FML. Overall, the findings indicate that, first, by looking at the perceived and actual skills of creating e-lectures in general, the findings show there are improvements from pre- to post-measures in favour of the group trained via FML but these differences were not significant. Second, with regard to the three main perceived and actual skills of creating e-lectures, the findings show that there are statistically significant differences in favour of the group trained via FML. Third, with regard to each perceived and actual sub-skill of creating e-lectures, there are statistically significant differences in some sub-skills in favour of the group trained via FML; however, the remaining sub-skills showed statistically significant differences in favour of the groups trained via FL and ML. The qualitative analysis illustrates the teachers’ opinions about FML, which were positive. Data on the benefits and difficulties of applying FML were gathered. The findings presented in this dissertation contribute to our current knowledge of FML and its potential to deliver low cost, effective teacher training which can be implemented easily and with readily available devices. The study also contributes to our knowledge of university lecturer training and, since teacher training is associated with student quality, effective training via FML could lead to obtaining a higher quality for student learning within higher education institutions. The findings could aid in making recommendations to policymakers in higher education in KSA and may contribute new data to the growing body of research on the effects of ML and FL on individual performance.
... -learning). So E-Learning is a learning system that provides educational programs at any time and place by using advanced telecommunication and technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud computing to provide an interactive learning environment to achieve learning goals (Moreno & Mayer 1999;Mayer & Mayer, 2005). ...
This study aimed to know the effect of E-Learning with all its components on students' performance at Business Colleges-Jordanian Universities during at COVID-19 crisis. To achieve study goals, a questionnaire was distributed to the students at Jordanian Universities, (870) valid questionnaires were recovered. The study found that: The level of E-Learning and its components at Jordanian Universities were at middle rates, students' performance also comes at a moderate level. E-Learning and its components (Technological facilities readiness, Electronic applications readiness, Databases & E-resources readiness, People readiness, E-Learning management system readiness, Evaluation system readiness, teaching methods diversity, Educational curricula and electronic content readiness) have a significant effect on students' performance at Jordanian Universities at significance (α ≤ 0.05). Whereas sub components of (E-Learning organizational environment readiness and legislations and regulations readiness) have no effect separately on students' performance. The study recommended Jordanian Universities to improve E-Learning in all its components in the Universities, reinforce using E-Learning in education, and exploit the benefits of E-Learning to improve students' performance because it is the main alternative to face emerging crises like Coronavirus.
... Mayer. R.E Mayer is particularly known for his work on cognitive principles of multimedia learning (Moreno & Mayer, 1999) and cognitive aspects of problem solving (Mayer, 1998). J. Sweller is the second most cited author in JCAL. ...
Background
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (JCAL), which started its publication life in 1985, is a leading international journal in the field of computer and instructional technologies and celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2020.
Objectives
This study aims to provide a bibliometric overview of leading publication and citation trends of JCAL over the past 35 years. In order to achive the aim of the study, metadata of all the articles (N = 1305) published in the journal in this process were obtained from the Scopus database.
Methods
The study includes JCALs bibliometric analyses such as the total number of articles and citations, h‐index, citations per paper, citations per year, citation thresholds, average number of citations per year and annual citation counts between 1985 and 2020. In addition, the study presents visual maps based on citation, co‐citation, bibliographic coupling, co‐authorship and co‐occurrence of author keywords with a bibliometric mapping analysis performed with VOSviewer software.
Results and Conclusions
The results indicate that JCAL has become one of the leading journals over time in the field of computer and instructional technologies, as indicated by citation counts of articles published in JCAL, receiving citations from publications in esteemed journals, and publishing international rigorous work. Additionally, researchers who have published in JCAL in recent years have directed their attention to subjects such as learning analytics, massive open online courses (MOOCs), multimedia learning, game‐based learning, blended learning, online learning, mobile learning and virtual reality.
Implications
Further investigation of the scientific collaboration of authors who conduct research in different disciplines related to education, topics and education levels may yield more diverse perspectives.
This study examined the effects of watching gestures and lip movement on second language (English) listening comprehension. The participants were 30 high and 22 low proficient learners of English. There were six listening tasks combining two variables: modality and difficulty. The modality consisted of three types of assessments: Body (the upper half of body was visible), Face (close up view), and Audio. The difficulty consisted of two levels: Easy and Hard. Learners watched Body, Face, or listened to Audio, and worked on six comprehension questions twice for each task. Moreover, the participants were asked about their modality of preference. The notable results were (1) the modality of listening had no influence on their listening performance, (2) for the high proficiency group, the score difference between the easy and the hard texts was larger at the second attempt than at the first attempt, (3) the participants generally preferred to watch the whole body, followed by watching the face, and then listening only, (4) the high proficiency group showed more variations of preference than the low proficiency group, and (5) the participants’ modality preference had no influence on their listening performance.
In order to better understand the user’s multitasking behavior, this study takes service-oriented intelligent assistants as the research object. It conducted a 2 × 2 within-subject experiment to explore effects of task relevance (task-related vs. task-independent) and interruption mode (internal interruption vs. external interruption) on individuals’ task performance and subjective feelings (cognitive load, needs gratification, flow). Obtained data were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA. The results indicate that multitasking interruption has negative effects on task performance and cognitive load, but has positive effects on needs gratification. Additionally, when performing related multitasking, the internal interruption results in higher needs gratification and flow than external interruption. These findings provide insights into the design and optimization of intelligent assistants in real life.
E-learning has been an important learning approach in the information era by providing flexible environments and rich resources for learners. However, it also faces several challenges, the biggest one being that students need to have strong self-regulation competence to control and manage their e-learning. As gamification has been widely used in primary education to facilitate children’s learning motivation and engagement, it is valuable to explore the impacts of gamification on children’s self-regulated learning. In this study, the role of gamification in children’s English learning in Hong Kong was investigated through a gamified e-learning system. A quasi-experiment with pre-test/post-test design was conducted among primary level 3 students over a semester. Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through academic tests, questionnaires, and interviews to provide comprehensive insights into the research questions. The key findings enable the identification of: (1) students’ gaining of self-regulated learning interest and academic performance from the gamified learning system; (2) students’ developed self-regulated learning strategies; and (3) the connection between gamification and students’ self-regulated learning. These findings have implications for e-learning designers and educators with regards to the practice of gamified learning to enhance students’ self-regulated learning and second language learning.
In 2 experiments, mechanically naive college students viewed an animation depicting the operation of a bicycle tire pump that included a verbal description given before (words-before-pictures) or during (words-with-pictures) the animation. The words-with-pictures group outperformed the words-before-pictures group on tests of creative problem solving that involved reasoning about how the pump works. In a follow-up experiment, students in the words-with-pictures group performed better on the problem-solving test than students who saw the animation without words (pictures only), heard the words without the animation (words only), or received no training (control). Results support a dual-coding hypothesis (Paivio, 1990) that posits two kinds of connections: representational connections between verbal stimuli and verbal representations and between visual stimuli and visual representations and referential connections between visual and verbal representations.
In three experiments, students read expository passages concerning how scientific devices work, which contained either no illustrations (control), static illustrations of the device with labels for each part (parts), static illustrations of the device with labels for each major action (steps), or dynamic illustrations showing the "off" and "on" states of the device along with labels for each part and each major action (parts-and-steps). Results indicated that the parts-and-steps (but not the other) illustrations consistently improved performance on recall of conceptual (but not nonconceptiual) information and creative problem solving (but not verbatim retention), and these results were obtained mainly for the low prior-knowledge (rather than the high prior-knowledge) students. The cognitive conditions for effective illustrations in scientific text include appropriate text, tests, illustrations, and learners.
In 2 experiments, high- and low-spatial ability students viwed a computer-generated animation and listened simultaneously (concurrent group) or successively (successive group) to a narration that explained the workings either of a bicycle tire pump (Experiment 1) or of the human respiratory system (Experiment 2). The concurrent group generated more creative solutions to subsequent transfer problems than did the successive group; this contiguity effect was strong for high- but not for low-spatial ability students. Consistent with a dual-coding theory, spatial ability allows high-spatial learners to devote more cognitive resources to building referential connections between visual and verbal representations of the presented material, whereas low-spatial ability learners must devote more cognitive resources to building representation connections between visually presented material and its visual representation.
In 2 experiments, students studied an animation depicting the operation of a bicycle tire pump or an automobile braking system, along with concurrent oral narration of the steps in the process (concurrent group), successive presentation of animation and narration (by 4 different methods), animation alone, narration alone, or no instruction (control group). On retention tests, the control group performed more poorly than each of the other groups, which did not differ from one another. On problem-solving tests, the concurrent group performed better than each of the other groups, which did not differ from one another. These results are consistent with a dual-coding model in which retention requires the construction of representational connections and problem solving requires the construction of representational and referential connections. An instructional implication is that pictures and words are most effective when they occur contiguously in time or space.
In 2 experiments, students who lacked prior knowledge about car mechanics read a passage about vehicle braking systems that either contained labeled illustrations of the systems, illustrations without labels, labels without illustrations, or no labeled illustrations. Students who received passages that contained labeled illustrations of braking systems recalled more explanative than nonexplanative information as compared to control groups, and performed better on problem solving transfer but not on verbatim recognition as compared to control groups. Results support a model of meaningful learning in which illustrations can help readers to focus their attention on explanative information in text and to reorganize the information into useful mental models.
How can we help students to understand scientific explanations of cause-and-effect systems, such as how a pump works, how the human respiratory system works, or how lightning storms develop? One promising approach involves multimedia presentation of explanations in visual and verbal formats, such as presenting computer-generated animations synchronized with computer-generated narration or presenting illustrations next to corresponding text. In a review of eight studies concerning whether multimedia instruction is effective, there was consistent evidence for a multimedia effect: Students who received coordinated presentation of explanations in verbal and visual format (multiple representation group) generated a median of over 75% more creative solutions on problem-solving transfer tests than did students who received verbal explanations alone (single representation group). In a review of 10 studies; concerning when multimedia instruction is effective, there was consistent evidence for a contiguity effect: Students generated a median of over 50% more creative solutions to transfer problems when verbal and visual explanations were coordinated (integrated group) than when they were not coordinated (separated group). Finally, in a review of six studies concerning for whom multimedia instruction is effective, Attribute x Treatment interactions indicated that multimedia and contiguity effects were strongest for low prior knowledge and high spatial ability students. Results are consistent with a generative theory of multimedia learning in which learners actively select, organize, and integrate verbal and visual information.
Students viewed a computer-generated animation depicting the process of lightning formation (Experiment 1) or the operation of a car's braking system (Experiment 2). In each experiment, students received either concurrent narration describing the major steps (Group AN) or concurrent on-screen text involving the same words and presentation timing (Group AT). Across both experiments, students in Group AN outperformed students in Group AT in recalling the steps in the process on a retention test, in finding named elements in an illustration on a matching test, and in generating correct solutions to problems on a transfer test. Multimedia learners can integrate words and pictures more easily when the words are presented auditorily rather than visually. This split-attention effect is consistent with a dual-processing model of working memory consisting of separate visual and auditory channels.
